


et in hora mortis nostrae

by VegaOfTheLyre



Category: 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:50:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VegaOfTheLyre/pseuds/VegaOfTheLyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucrezia mourns her brother's passing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	et in hora mortis nostrae

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marketchippie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marketchippie/gifts).



> An excessively morbid present, perhaps, but one I hope you'll enjoy all the same.
> 
> A large debt is owed to Sarah Bradford for her Borgia biographies; they helped me make sense of the people and the sequence of events in my own head wonderfully.

> Qual gratia, qual amore, o qual destino  
> mi darà penne in guisa di colomba,  
> ch'i' mi riposi, et levimi da terra? 
>
>> **Francesco Petrarch** , 1304-1374

 

 

"Your brother is dead, Madonna," Fra Raphaele says.

Lucrezia stares at him uncomprehendingly. "Jofre?" she says. He shakes his head, mouth set and grave; her blood runs with ice and she says _Cesare_ , or tries to but the words don't come and she is left mutely mouthing the syllables like a fish flopping in its death throes on the beach. The friar nods, and then Lucrezia's frozen heart shatters entirely.

She goes white. Her chest constricts painfully, horror gripping her lungs like a vice, and she closes her eyes and sways dangerously where she stands. Fra Raphaele hastens forward, alarmed, taking her elbow to steady her, but she just opens her eyes again and stares into his face, mind blank, not registering the pinch of his fingers on her arm.

"Are you all right, child?" he says. "Breathe for me, there's a good girl."

Oh, to think of breathing at a time like this – she gasps in a ragged mouthful of air and desperately clamps onto his hand with both of hers, her rings and sharp nails digging into the flesh of his wrist.

"How?" she chokes out at last, shaking his arm a little. "When? What – what happened?"

"He was set upon in the forest after the siege of Viana," he says, and he swallows and adds, "six weeks ago."

Lucrezia sobs once before covering her mouth.

"His squire survived the ambush," Fra Raphaele goes on; she bites the tips of her fingers as if the pain of it might wake her from this nightmare. "He rode to Ferrara as soon as he could, but we thought – we thought it best that you hear it from a friendly face, especially as your lord husband is so unfortunately absent."

 _Friendly_ , she thinks, as though she will ever be able to see him again without remembering what's he's done to her. He looks like he might continue but she forestalls him with a raised hand: "No more," she says, "no more."

"Shall we pray together, Donna Lucrezia?" he asks.

Lucrezia turns hard eyes on him. "Why, sir?" Her voice is cold and level: good. "The more I try to please God, the more he tries me; and so I think I will stop trying, for a few hours at least."

"Madonna," she sees him say with sorrow writ on every feature – she cannot hear him speak over the deafening pounding of her heart in her ears – but she turns and walks blindly towards the chapel door, sidestepping him as he reaches for her uselessly one last time. Her ladies are hovering anxiously on the threshold and when Lucrezia finally stumbles and collapses in a sinking cloud of blue cloth they are there to catch her and raise her back up again, murmuring sympathetic nonsense, hands fluttering over her arms, her shoulders, smoothing her hair, wiping away the tears she hadn't known were already wetting her cheeks.

"Help me," she whispers, voice cracking, leaning her forehead on Jacopa's shoulder in her grief. She knows only that she cannot let them all see her like this, for she is their Duchessa and a Borgia: she does not fall apart, she does not know how to weep, she cannot admit to these human frailties or it will surely be her downfall. In silent accord, her ladies move to flank her like soldiers, blocking her from view of the servants and courtiers who are beginning to pause and gawk at her as the news of Cesare's death ripples through the palace. She squeezes Nicola's hand gratefully, lets Jacopa clasp her around the waist, and allows them to sweep her along down the hall to her apartment as one body, permitting no noise but the rustling of their gowns and the tapping of their shoes on the stones.

 

 

She is six and he is eleven and she is standing in the courtyard of their mother Vannozza's house sobbing, her hair and left cheek caked in mud. Cesare is kneeling before her, shaking her by the shoulders: "Who did this, Crezia?" he says. "What happened?"

Lucrezia manages to gasp out the story, how the three brats of a merchant who lives down the street waylayed her as she hopped up and down the front steps of the house, waiting for Cesare to come home from his lessons, threw dirt at her and taunted her as she cowered against the door. "They called Papa a lecher and Mama a whore," she says, "and said we would all burn in hell for their sins. Is it true, Cesare?"

"Ha!" Cesare says. He smears the dirt off her face with the cuff of his sleeve, drags his thumbnail down the pink ribbon in her golden curls to remove the worst of the mud. "As if anything they say is worth listening to. They're just jealous of us, Crezia. Their mother is fat fishwife and their father is a philandering hypocrite of the worst kind. Don't pay them any mind."

She doesn't know what the words _philandering_ or _hypocrite_ mean but she giggles despite herself. He smiles to see it and thumbs away the tears under her eyes.

"We know what we are. We're Borgias, yes?" She nods, lower lip trembling, and Cesare stands, adding, "Don't let Papa see you crying."

Something in Lucrezia's soul balks at this. She is hurt and she wants everyone to know it, wants everyone to feel her wrath. "Why?" she says stubbornly, eyes still wet. She sniffs.

Cesare grips Lucrezia's upper arms and leans forward until their foreheads are touching. "Because you're my brave sister, and because I," he says firmly, "will take care of it."

He kisses her on the nose and then wipes at her cheeks one more time with the hem of his shirt. She looks up at him adoringly, late afternoon sunlight glaring in her eyes, and then

she is being shaken

 _awake_

by Nicola, standing over her bed.

"Madonna," she says, eyes wide and frightened, candlelight throwing her face into sharp relief. "You were moaning in your sleep. Are you well?"

"No," Lucrezia says, and she turns her face away towards the wall.

It's been twenty-seven hours since she received the news. Time heals all wounds, she is told, but she fears that it will not pass fast enough for her before she is left dead of this gaping hole in her chest.

 

 

She finds strength enough to take a meal in her rooms with her brother-in-law the Cardinal two days later. Ippolito is awkward but well-meaning; whatever he thought of her brother (and she was never quite sure, in his case, but anyone who appreciated their own continued good health was at least a little wary of Cesare and that, at least, she will respect), he feels for her in her hour of grief. He sits across from her, smiling occasionally in a painful sort of way around his food; she cannot smile back, cannot let her mask crack for fear of crumbling all over again, but she nods in acknowledgment and plucks up a grape to eat. A tremor goes through her whole hand as she raises it to her lips; to hide her trembling, she crushes the grape between her fingers.

"His children," she says suddenly.

It takes a moment for Ippolito to respond, but then he sits forward, brow furrowed. "What, you mean Luisa?" he says.

She flaps an impatient hand, standing and moving over to her desk. "No, she's safe with her mother's family," she says, sitting. "No, the others – Girolamo, Camilla, the rest of them. Do you know how they're being provided for?"

"I'm not certain, Madonna," he says as she prepares her pen for the letters she needs to write, pulling paper close to her hand.

"Well, we'll have to find out, then," she says briskly, and then she pauses and braces her fingers to her temple: "Oh, _santo cielo_ , Rodrigo and Giovanni, too, we'll have to make sure they're safe. Can I trust you to help me make the appropriate enquiries?"

"Yes, of course," he says, a little bemused by her sudden burst of activity, but she is already busy writing.

 

 

Letters, letters, letters. Letters to Jofre, letters to Rome, letters to her husband where he is camping on military campaign. The condolences are starting to pour in already; Alfonso was the first to send her a dear sweet note of sympathy, kinder than his feelings for Cesare fairly warrant. Nothing from Isabella, her viper of a sister-in-law, Lucrezia notes cattily; she knows what fine allies they would make if they were ever to play nice but she is quite sick of stooping and Isabella doesn't seem inclined to bend her way any time soon so they are stuck in this silly dance of politeness and loathing. Lucrezia sighs and picks up the first letter to pen her reply. It is an annoyance and a burden, but she welcomes the distraction.

And then again, it is one more reason for her to not have to leave her apartment.

 

 

"How is she doing?"

"Not well, we think," another voice says. "Nightmares. It's awful to hear; she just says his name in her sleep, over and over and over again."

 _Do I?_ Lucrezia wonders, a little surprised.

Her ladies are talking in low tones in the antechamber but she cannot make out any more of it, their soft voices blurring together into incomprehension. She sighs to herself and huddles back into the blankets but before she can fall asleep she hears the creak of the door, the gentle hush of fabric whisking over carpet near to her bed.

Warily, she opens her eyes. Angela Borgia, her cousin – the foolish, lovely creature – is kneeling at her bedside, still wrapped in her traveling cloak with her nose and cheeks pink from the cold. Angela smiles up at her, eyes bright with tears, and Lucrezia swallows around the lump that has risen in her throat and pushes herself up on one hand.

"You came," she says hoarsely, and Angela flings herself forward impetuously to hug her around the neck, knocking them both off balance.

"Of course I did, Crezia," she says into Lucrezia's hair. They cling together for a moment and then Angela pulls back and kisses both Lucrezia's cheeks. "How are you, then, truly?"

"As you see," Lucrezia says, voice still unsteady. She pushes at her raw eyes with the heel of her hand and Angela perches beside her on the bed, her normally merry face sober.

"That poorly, then?" Angela says. "Have you left your rooms yet?"

"Yes," Lucrezia says. "No. Almost."

Angela sighs. "Push over, beloved," she says, prodding Lucrezia over so she can curl up against her on the bed, a liberty Lucrezia would allow none but her kinswoman to take. Angela pulls the blankets up around them and wraps an arm around Lucrezia's waist, breath hot against the back of her neck.

"I cannot sleep," Lucrezia says after a moment. "I don't want to sleep. I'm exhausted, but all I see when I close my eyes is him before, alive or dead, and I'm never sure which is worse. I know I should be stronger than this but I'm not, and I cannot – I – "

"Keep trying," Angela says. "That's all anyone can ask of you."

They lapse into silence together, and then Lucrezia whispers into the dark, "I have seen too much of death, Angela."

Angela nods against her shoulder, understanding as only a fellow Borgia could. She reaches for Lucrezia's hand; Lucrezia holds her desperately, lifting their joined hands to her heart. Exhausted from her journey, Angela slips into sleep quickly, her breathing settling into a steady childlike rhythm, but Lucrezia remains awake with her eyes open.

Six weeks.

She almost regrets, now, calling poor Juan Grasica, Cesare's squire, to her rooms to hear his tale in all its sordid detail. She nearly retches to think of it: Cesare, stripped naked of his armour and clothes, face down in the dirt and the leaves of the forest floor. Stabbed through a dozen times or more. Handsome features mauled beyond all recognition. Grasica doesn't soften it for her and she doesn't ask him to; he knows what it is to be a Borgia and she admires him for it.

But the image haunts her. Six weeks gone now; more, she realises. What's become of his body now, hastily interred at Viana? For Lucrezia knows a thing or two about death. She heard the gruesome tales of what happened to her father's body in the Roman heat, of the atrocities they inflicted on his corpse to fit it in his coffin. She remembers the body of her brother Juan stretched on its bier, profile handsome even in death, the gaping slit in his throat washed clean by his long hours in the Tiber and covered by the collar of his doublet. Pantasilea and Perotto – beloved and loyal to her and her alone – were not so lucky, and though she was never allowed to see their bodies, though they all did their best to hide their gruesome ends from her, there is little information in Rome that cannot be bought for the right price; the intelligence fetched by a little ruby ring told her all she needed to know about the fate of their stabbed and mutilated corpses, bloated and rotten and fish-gnawed. She saw her first Alfonso, her second husband, only scant minutes after he was strangled, face purple and distorted, blood sprayed scarlet across the white sheets.

Death has dogged her heels since childhood with Cesare keeping pace beside them both. There are so many deaths on her conscience she thinks she might soon drown with the weight of them all, and they weren't all her loved ones, no, for what of Ramiro? Cesare's dear, loyal Ramiro, the only one he would trust to accompany Lucrezia on her wedding journey to Ferrara; Ramiro who thrust his way into her borrowed rooms one morning as she was washing her hair, her ladies gone for just a few short moments; Ramiro who smiled so dangerously and said, "Surely we are ready to move on by now, Madonna?"

"Not _yet_ , sir, and you will wait outside for me," Lucrezia had said sharply, and then he was coming towards her and then –

oh, no, she will not dwell on _that_ , nor on what came after; Angela, shocked and wide-eyed and almost afraid to approach but then again turning infinitely gentle as she straightens Lucrezia's dress and reties her laces and finds her a blanket to ward off the vicious chill that seems to have seeped into her bones to leave her numb and shivering; and nor will she think of what came still after, months later, Ramiro's head on a spike in the town square at Cesena on a cold crisp December morning, a fair enough fate for the traitor he was but everyone knew, oh, they _knew_ , they saw Lucrezia's cut and swollen lower lip and the trembling in her hands the next day, saw and gossiped and did nothing and so they knew what truly drove Cesare to it, and it was all her fault all over again, another man dead in her name, her brother offering up another corpse at her feet for the sake of her honour, his vanity, their love –

Love, yes, love above all else; and look at where it has gotten them both.

Angela's hand tightens on hers. Lucrezia pulls the blankets closer and tries again to sleep, though without much hope of success.

 

 

 _Think of him in happier times_ , Fra Raphaele instructs her.

She attempts to obey. She watches the good friar go through the motions of the Mass as she stands like a stone statue in her pew, veiled and swathed in black. Angela has managed to cajole her out of her rooms for this much, at least, a service in her brother's name – as if all the requiems in the world could wash her brother's soul free of its stains. Her eyes fix on the altar and she tunes out the drone of Latin to cast her memory back:

She is just a child, an innocent girl of thirteen, and it is the night before her first wedding. Cesare comes to visit her in her room after the feasts and dancing are done, knowing she will be wide awake and terrified. He sits her down by the fire wrapped up in a dressing gown and leans in to stoke the flames higher as he swears to her by all that is holy that all will be well, that she will be happy with her husband; and if not, Giovanni will have to answer to him, and if that wasn't an incentive to good behaviour then what was? Lucrezia stretches her hands to him and Cesare clasps them tightly, rings squeezing her fingers, and then

she is in the full bloom of her beauty and youth, stepping through the figures of her wedding dance; not with Alfonso, her dear second husband not yet arrived in Rome, but with Cesare in his stead. Their father looks on smilingly as they clasp hands and turn about one another, and Lucrezia, happier than words could say, curls her fingers into her brother's and draws him closer to her so they can talk.

"Will you never marry yourself?" she says. Cesare looks down at her, eyes thoughtful, and then Lucrezia leans in teasingly: "Or will you give your life over to service of the Church entirely? Soldier or monk; which will it be?"

"Don't worry about me, Crezia," Cesare says. As she twirls his free hand catches on the cloud of gold that is her hair spilling free to her knees. "Your life of domestic bliss is not for me; I will die young and with a smile on my face."

"What, in the arms of a beautiful woman?"

He grins; the effect is grim. "One hopes."

"I only want you to be as happy as I am, Cesare," she says quite solemnly (oh, what a little fool she was), and he drops a kiss to her knuckles as he turns her.

"Your happiness is ever my own, sister," he says.

" _Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis._ "

Pulled violently back the stark cold reality of her Ferrarese chapel, Lucrezia shivers. There is nothing happy about either of these memories now, not in light of what came after. What is one untainted remembrance of him, then?

Ah – her last.

"Let me see my brother," she is crying; the doctors all swarm about her looking grave, telling her no, she is still too sick, she is still too feverish, they don't want to upset her further. She tries to explain to them that keeping Cesare from her is the worst thing they could do to make her sick, but they won't listen; won't listen, that is, until Cesare impatiently pushes his way into her room and sinks down onto the bed beside her, ignoring the worried flutterings of her staff. She flings her arms around him and he holds her tightly, nose buried in her hair, breathing in deep.

"I arrived last night," he says, "I'm sorry I haven't been able to get in to see you since – "

"I know," she says, "I know I know I know, they wouldn't let you in, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I tried..."

"Don't be sorry," he says. He lets go of her and lowers her back down to her pillows before clambering over her to sit on the bed proper. It is almost like they are children again, sharing secrets in the dark, Lucrezia thinks, grateful for his presence beyond words. "It's not your fault. How are you, sister?"

She sobs involuntarily. "I lost her," she says, turning her face into the pillow already wet with her tears. "I lost my baby, Chez."

"I know," he says. He runs a soothing hand through her hair. "I know, Crezia."

"Alfonso will disown me," she says.

"He won't," Cesare says. "There will be other babies, Crezia. You will get past this, I promise you."

And Cesare never breaks his promises. Lucrezia props herself up on her elbow and says bitterly, "But, anyway, now these wretches want to bleed me, and I won't, Cesare, I _can't_ go through that now – "

"Yes, so they were telling me," he says. "You won't let them at all? Because I hate to tell you, sister, but you look a fright, it might do you good. Unless you like the wilting consumptive look?"

She laughs despite herself through her tears and he smiles and pushes her hair away from her face. "You'll be all right, my love," he says, kissing the top of her head before pushing himself up to kneel by her feet at the end of the bed. "And they only want to get you better. Are you ready to let them do their job now?"

"Oh, if they must," she sighs.

He tickles the arch of her bare foot vindictively. Lucrezia jerks it back and snorts with laughter before letting him pin her ankle to the bedclothes with his gentle clever fingers. "Hold still, now," he says, "for me," and when he nods to the doctors they swoop in en masse with their knives and bowls.

"Only for you, Cesare," she says, bracing herself, and he sinks back on his heels and reaches back for her with his free hand and she clings to it with all her heart.

And then, assured in his own mind that she was recovering, he had left in the night; and that, Lucrezia thinks now with a start, is the last time on earth she would ever see Cesare, alive or dead.

Her hands are clasped together so tightly on the jewel-worked binding of her missal that when she realises what she is doing and finally unclenches them there is a network of diamonds and circles mapped out deep on the flesh of her palms and fingers, first limned in white and then flushing to red.

A tear slips down her cheek. Drearily, she reaches up behind her veil to wipe it away. Funny, how many tears a human body has in it; by any rights she should be a shriveled husk of a woman by now.

 

 

Having left her rooms and crossed that line she supposes she must go through the motions of public life again, now, and so she arranges a feast in her brother's memory. It is a weird affair. None know exactly how to behave around her. They would much rather, she knows, be rejoicing in their good luck at being rid of the most pressing threat to their wellbeing in the last ten years, and so it is an intensely awkward dinner; they are all falling over themselves to praise Cesare and comfort her, and she knows how false it is, and she knows they know she knows how false it is, and it is all giving her a tremendous headache.

One of her poets stands to deliver a eulogy, a fine, beautifully phrased tribute to a man he must have loathed. Lucrezia smiles in thanks ands nods along, her hand pressed to her heart, all the while she thinking of how dearly she would love to slice this poet down to size. _You know nothing of him_ , she wants to rage at the crowd. _He was more wonderful and more terrible than your reckoning could conceive of, you tiny, tiny humans_ –

Agapito da Amelia, just arrived from Bologna, stares down at his plate looking as if he is trying not to laugh. He knew Cesare, was his secretary and confidant for years, and hears exactly how hollowly all these pretty words are ringing.

Tribute done, the applause dies away fast. There will be no dancing tonight, just sober talking and covert glances at Lucrezia to see how she is taking it all; when she stands, the mass of people move quickly to disperse from the table. _Cowards_ , she thinks, but she moves down the room to where Agapito still sits bowed over his plate. Lucrezia drops a hand to his shoulder and leans in.

"We must talk," she murmurs. Surprised, he covers her hand and bows over it as best he can in his chair.

"Of course, Madonna," he says. "It would be my pleasure."

She smiles and moves on, circulating through her guests, feeling the mantle of Duchessa settle once more on her shoulders. It is, she thinks later, _almost_ a success of an evening, marred only by one particular conversation she stumbles upon passing an alcove on her way up to her rooms:

"Forgive me, but Madonna Lucrezia's the only one who's sad to see il Valentino gone," she hears a man say. "Even Don Alfonso is rejoicing over in Genoa to see that creature shed of his mortal burden, and can you blame him?"

His companion snorts. "Quite," he says. "I wouldn't go so far as to say he was a fiend sent from hell itself who deserved every stab he got thrice over, but – "

"But if someone else did, you wouldn't disagree?"

They laugh together. Lucrezia, blind with anger, moves forward past the entrance to their alcove, stops short, and pivots to face them. She doesn't recognise them; this fact doesn't abate her bloodlust in the slightest. The two men straighten at the sight of her, eyes wide and aghast.

"Are we having a good evening, gentlemen?" she says, voice sugary as she can make it, hand tightening on her cup. She will not throw it at their heads. She will _not_.

"Why – why yes, Donna Lucrezia," the first man says. He clears his throat and casts a wild look at his companion, who remains resolutely mute with panic. "We were just saying how dearly sorry we were to hear of the loss of your brother – most tragic – a great loss for our states – "

"Oh, but your cup's gone dry," she interrupts solicitously. "Shall I refill it for you?"

And she lifts her own cup, drinks, and smiles around the lip of it as she swallows.

The man goes white and then green. Lucrezia raises an eyebrow, turns, and leaves.

For the first time since Fra Raphaele gave her the news of her brother's death she almost feels like giggling. _For you, Cesare_ , she thinks, raising her cup a fraction in salute as she walks down the hall alone. She pictures him laughing at her tribute and she allows herself to smile, for real this time.

 

 

She is standing by the window in her rooms at Nepi, face blank, heart numb, still dressed in mourning for her dear Alfonso. She has not seen her brother in weeks and when he comes in, tired and dusty from his journey, her fingers itch to slap him or to rip his lungs from his chest. He drops to his knees before her, eyes lowered contritely; what a mockery, she thinks, what a sham of sentiment.

"Forgive me," Cesare says, and she is begins to shake with outrage: he's not even going to pretend?

"What is there to forgive?" she says. "You have no heart. You have no soul. You are a beast, a brute dumb beast, and you don't know the meaning of the word _love_ – "

"Don't say that," he says. There are tears in his eyes now but she is not about to be stirred by them. "Crezia. Lucrezia, please. You know how I love you – "

He attempts to seize her hand but she rips it away from him. " _Then why do you do this to me?_ " she screams, not caring who hears. "Why do you take _everything_ away from me? Why do you destroy everything I love in this world?"

"I only know that I love you," he says, "and I would do anything to protect you."

"You would do anything to protect yourself," she says tiredly. He wraps his arms around her knees and she drops limply back into a waiting chair; he buries his head in her lap and she raises a hand to stroke his thick dark hair. "Alfonso would have ruined all your carefully-laid plans, and Perotto, too, before him. Oh, yes, Cesare. You didn't think I'd forgotten about Perotto, did you?"

"I'm so sorry," he says wretchedly, voice muffled. "I am so sorry, Lucrezia, you must know that, but you – you are mine, and they would have taken you away from me."

"Yes, Cesare," she says, gently raising his face. "I am yours, and you are mine, and nothing will ever change that. But you need to let me live, Cesare. You are choking me, my beloved, my own. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he says, "yes – "

She is weeping now; they are weeping together as they embrace, and then

her dream

 _changes_

and they are kneeling together in the forest outside Viana and Cesare is dead and Lucrezia knows it.

"Everything is ruined, Cesare," she says. He strokes her wet cheek: _hush_. "You are dead. Juan is dead, and Papa is dead, and we Borgias are thrown down into the dirt. How am I supposed to go on?"

"You will go on because you are my brave sister, and I have faith in you," he says calmly. His face is grey, hair matted with blood, but he is her brother, her handsome brother, all hers, and he is smiling at her more sweetly than he ever did in life.

"But we are finished," she says dully, head bowed.

 _You are not_ , he whispers in her ear, and she wakes with a start.

She has been sleeping in her chair by the window of her bedroom that overlooks the rooftops of Ferrara. Lucrezia cranes her neck this way and that way, squinting in the sunlight, trying to loosen the knots in her spine, and in the process she disturbs the blanket one of her women must have wrapped around her in her sleep. It is an unseasonably cold day for May; not a good omen for her husband's return to his city, she thinks.

She remembers now what happened to the neighbourhood children who had thrown clods of mud at her simply for being Rodrigo and Vannozza's daughter. Lisa, the girl, only a year older than Lucrezia, had gotten her face shoved into the mud for her troubles – an eye for an eye, Lucrezia supposes – and then that night Cesare had ambushed Lisa's older brothers in the alleyway when they were coming home, had broken one's arm and given the other a concussion that left him abed for a week. She cringes to think of it now, a sick weight settling at the pit of her stomach; oh, _Cesare_ , she thinks miserably, burying her head in her hands.

No.

Lucrezia raises her head and turns her face back towards the window, lifting her hands to clutch at the arms of her chair. What she will remember is the light dazzling her vision and the warmth in her heart as she gazed up at him, knowing he would do anything under God's hot sun for her; she will remember the love in his eyes as he smiled over her and lifted her chin to kiss her forehead, brave and sure.

 _May you finally be at peace, Cesare_ , she thinks, _wherever you are._

"Madonna!"

She half-turns her head. One of her ladies is hanging on the doorframe, face flushed and happy, hair falling in wisps about her face. "Donna Lucrezia, your husband has come home!"

Lucrezia nods and turns away. "I'll be down in a moment," she says, voice soft. Out of the corner of her eye she watches as her lady straightens, suddenly self-aware and embarrassed at her own abandon, curtseys, and disappears.

Alone once more, Lucrezia breathes in deep and tries to settle the lines of her face into something resembling contented happiness. She can do this. She must, of course, there is nothing like choice about it; but she _can_ do it, so she will.

And then she stands, draws on her gloves, smoothes her gown, and heads out to meet Alfonso.


End file.
